


This is Why We're Medical Proxies

by SecretGeniusShittyKnight (augopher)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Getting Together, Gratuitous abuse of altered lyrics, Holster is high on pain meds, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 11:46:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8284678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/augopher/pseuds/SecretGeniusShittyKnight
Summary: Holster gets sick. Then he gets a hospital stay. Then he gets high. Then he gets a boyfriend.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jxc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jxc/gifts).



> Characters belong to Ngozi Ukazu and her comic Check, Please!

With a groan, Holster rolled over to silence his alarm. He’d gone to bed early the night before when he felt the first signs of coming down with something. A stomachache was no fun to wake up to, but such was life. For a brief moment, he contemplated blowing off his lecture, but he was really struggling with ‘Advanced Econometric Methods’ and missing a class was a terrible idea. Yet, as he sat up, the room spun around him. To keep from falling over from the rush of lightheadedness, he clutched the rail of Ransom’s bunk.

“Son of a…” The last thing he needed was to catch that stomach bug that had been spreading throughout campus like the plague. They had a vital series of games coming up in the final playoff push. His team _needed_ him. He made it halfway down the stairs before a wave of nausea sent him scrambling down the rest for the bathroom, only to find the one he shared with Bitty locked. With what little remained in his stomach dangerously close to pressing the eject button, he flung open Chowder’s door, startling him in the process. Thankfully though, the bathroom door was open, and Holster made a beeline for the toilet.

“You okay, man?” Chowder croaked from his bed, no doubt still clutching his chest from the rude awakening.

“Ugh. ‘s disgusting.” For good measure, Holster remained there on the floor clutching the bowl for several minutes. In a lucky break, he found the nausea had subsided a bit. So maybe it was just something he ate. “That’ll teach me to buy a gas station sandwich again. Sorry, Chowder. Someone’s in my bathroom, and I didn’t want to yak all over the hallway.”

He rinsed out his mouth and made the slow trek downstairs. Not particularly hungry–or what was probably more accurate, afraid to throw up again–he settled for grabbing a bottle of Gatorade from the fridge. Replenishing fluids was a good idea. The kitchen table filled up slowly with his housemates coming down for breakfast, the few not in class that was.

“You feeling okay, Holtzy?” Ransom asked when he appeared in the kitchen, freshly showered, five minutes later.

“Nah, man. Something I ate.”

Ransom studied him for a good long minute. “You’re pale, but flushed if that makes sense.” Broad, warm hands cupped his face, and Ransom held a hand to his forehead. “Wait right here, okay?”

Then, he disappeared to places unknown before returning with a thermometer that he popped under Holster’s tongue without a warning.

“You ‘ould ‘ave asked.” Holster mumbled while trying to keep the thermometer under his tongue.

“Shh.” When it beeped, Ransom inspected the display. “So you have a fever. I think you should go back to bed.”

“Yeah, nope. I’m floundering in that class. Don’t want to miss it. Is it a really high fever?”

Ransom shrugged and shook his head. “Just 100.2, but you should listen to me.”

Holster patted him on the shoulder. “Thank you for your love and concern, man. If I start to feel worse, I’ll come home.”

Ransom rolled his eyes and crossed the kitchen muttering something about ‘stubborn jackasses’ under his breath as he poured coffee.

 

***

 

“As you can see here,” Professor Harrington’s monotonous timbre droned on, “ this type of object was considered as early as Wright back in 1928. Wright gives a nice explanation of movements which follow along a curve in a setting of supply and demand. Moreover, the average of this treatment effect is merely the expected value of random coefficient, or coefficients, in a linear model.”

Holster blinked several times at the equation on the whiteboard at the front of the lecture hall. What fresh hell was that?

 

> Yi = Yi0 +(Yi1 − Yi0)Di = αi + βiDi,
> 
> αi = Yi0,βi = Yi1 − Yi0.

His brain felt foggy, and he could not recall what any of those variables or letters meant. How could he when his body was wracked with chills and each shiver unleashed fresh wave of pain in his stomach?  He ducked out of lecture and headed to the bathroom, sure he would throw up once more. After that turned out to be a false alarm, Holster settled back into his seat in the auditorium and tried to pay attention. It was a two hour lecture, and he was sure he would need every minute of it to acquire a grasp of what was being discussed.

Now throbbing with a dull ache, his head just could not stay focused, but that was what he got for being dehydrated. So, he religiously finished his Gatorade (his third of the day). Yet, his head still ached. He was no longer convinced it was something he ate, and his thoughts once more centered on the bug going around. Instead, once the class broke for the five minute break in the middle of the lecture, he made his way down to the professor.

“What can I do for you Mr. Birkholtz?”

“I was wondering if I could get the assignment now? I think that stomach flu finally got me, and I’m gonna head back to my room, hopefully sleep it off.”

Professor Harrington gave him the once over and seemed to agree. “You are looking a bit pallid this morning.” He grabbed a stapled packet of papers from the desk beside him. “You’ll need to finish this problem set for your discussion group and complete the reading on treatment effects before next week’s lecture. It is titled by the author Whitney on the class website.”

Holster nodded that he understood and stowed his homework.

The walk across campus was torture and included two stops to paint the insides of garbage bins a lovely shade of blue vomit thanks to his Gatorade. When he finally arrived back at the Haus, blissfully empty, he scribbled a note on the fridge to keep it down and not bother him. Then, with the trash can from their room parked securely next to his bed, Holster grabbed the Haus heating pad they used anytime someone had an injury and curled up with it in bed. Body aches were one of the worst parts of being sick, the fucking worst.

 

***

 

Ransom dropped his backpack on the counter. Class had been murder. He seriously hated his Virology lab, mostly because his lab partner was a fucking douchecanoe who had the common sense of an amoeba.

“There’s fresh made ginger snaps on the cooling rack,” Bitty called from the living room.

Excellent. He was starving. As he loaded up a plate with cookies and grabbed the jug of milk–honestly, why in the world could no one see how much more sensible bagged milk was? For one, it took up a hell of a lot less space–to pour himself a nice tall glass, he noticed Holster’s note tacked to the fridge on a page of his Spongebob stationery…the same stationery he happened to make himself, as evidenced by the ‘From the desk of: All Hail King Holster’. What? He and Ransom were shitfaced and thought it was hilarious.

**_This is your captain speaking: Keep it the fuck down! I caught the plague and am wasting away to nothing. Please leave me to die in peace_ **

Ransom shook his head. He was best friends with a dork. Plain and simple. While he munched on his snack, he diligently went to work on his reading, taking extensive notes in his patented way which included tables and infoboxes, color coding. Holster liked to tease him about it, but why mess with a working system?

See there was this thing that happened when he studied. He got in the fucking zone and tuned out all distractions, becoming totally immersed in the task. So, when Bitty spoke to him some time later, he didn’t hear it at first. “I’m sorry. Didn’t catch that.”

Bitty placed a bottle of Gatorade and one of Advil in front of him right next to the sleeve of saltines. “Do me a favor and go check on Holster? I would, but I think he would mind the intrusion less if it was you.”

Bitty had a point.

There was no way to keep the attic door from squeaking as he opened it. “Sorry,” he said with a wince, convinced he’d woken Holster. Instead, he found him kneeling beside his bed clutching the trashcan. “God it smells like death in here. Do I need to call the morgue?”

He was met with a groan and Holster flipping him off.

“So how’s the fever?” he asked, nudging Holster out of the way to tie off the trash bag and switch it out for a clean one from the roll they kept on the dresser. Another groan. And then…

Well, that fresh trash bag wasn’t so clean anymore.

Ransom felt Holster’s forehead. “You’re burning up. Come on, let’s get you back into bed.” Lifting Holster who was,more or less, dead weight into his bunk was going to be a workout all on its own. “I ever tell you that you are one heavy fucker?”

“‘m a big guy. CourseI’mheavy. Jus’meansmoreametolove. An’ youreallyshouldloveme.”

Holster’s slightly slurred speech had him concerned, and he put more effort into hefting his friend, but stopped at the whimper of pain that came next. Instead, he grabbed the pillow off the bed and spread the comforter out on the floor. “Hey, come here, Holtzy. That’s it. Good.”

Once he’d flipped on the lights, he could see how bad a shape Holster was in. “That’s rough, man. The stomach flu is the worst. I’m guessing you don’t want these crackers then.”

Holster only shook his head.

“You cold?”

“Yeah.”

Ransom grabbed his own comforter and spread it out over him. Then, he opened the Gatorade, sticking a bendy straw in the bottle. “Open up.”

When he was convinced Holster had enough to drink at once, Ransom closed the bottle and set it next to the trash can. “Lemme go get my homework and I’ll queue up something on your laptop.”

“Don’lemme keepyoufromstudies.”

“Nonsense. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Which was how Ransom found himself about ten minutes later, sitting beside Holster on the mattress he’d pulled onto the floor. Honestly, he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t done that in the first place. Every chuckle drew a hiss of pain from Holster until Ransom couldn’t take listening to him anymore. “We’re gonna watch something boring as hell so you fall asleep. There’s got to be something on here that would meet Zimmermann’s qualifications for interesting documentary.”

“I love you, Ransy. You’re the best,” he said while petting ransom’s leg.

“I know. Now get some sleep.”

The program he picked out actually worked wonderfully as a background for his reading, and not even Holster’s quiet snoring, which was really more like whining, didn’t distract him.

 

***

 

“So, how’s he doing?” Bitty asked when Ransom came downstairs for dinner a while later.

“Dude is sick as a dog.”

Dex scooped a hearty portion of pasta onto his plate. “I mean I threw up a few times with that stomach bug, but I wasn’t that miserable. Leave it to the big guy to get leveled by a little virus, yeah?”

Ransom nodded in agreement as he ate his spaghetti in relative silence, his brain too busy ruminating on what he’d just read and his laid up best friend asleep in the attic. When everyone had finished dinner, they moved into the living room to watch the Falconers’ game, swearing to keep their excited outbursts to a dull murmur. He even invoked Captain’s privilege promising a practice full of suicides to anyone who woke up Holster.

Even _he_ didn’t dare disturb his slumber when he decided to go to bed for the night, choosing instead to crash on the couch. _Ransom’s_ sleep however was interrupted in the middle of the night when Chowder gently shook him awake. “Time’s it?”

“Like one in the morning. But um, Holster is pounding on the floor or something.”

The fuck was he doing that for?

The ‘fuck’ was answered as soon as he stepped foot in the attic to find Holster on all fours in the middle of the room.

“Ransy, m’love, m’dying.”

“No, you’re not.”

“S’omache’sonfire. Tried to,” Ransom watched him take several painful breaths, “getdowns’airs. Can’t. ER, man.”

“Okay. Come on” 

“‘m not wearing pants.”

“Trust me; they’ve seen stranger things.”

He managed with a Herculean effort to get Holster down both flights of stairs and onto the couch. “Where are your keys, Holtzy?”

“I saw them on the counter,” Chowder cut in, and Ransom had forgotten he was there.

“Can you drive, Chowder?”

“What?”

“I’ve never asked. Do you know how to drive? Nursey doesn’t so…”

Chowder nodded in understanding. “Oh yeah. I can. You want me to?”

Obviously. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to shout that at him, so Ransom nodded.

“Lemme go grab my shoes, okay? Gimme two minutes.”

Everything passed by in a blur from then on. He sat in the back seat of Holster’s minivan with his best friend’s head in his lap. Sitting up was clearly impossible for Holster, and Ransom didn’t want to risk it as the poor guy threw up all over the sidewalk on the way out to the car. Ransom couldn’t remember the last time he was this scared. As he’d waited for Chowder, he’d coaxed Holster into letting him take his temperature which broke 104. Guy was delirious at this point.

A burning hand rubbed Ransom’s cheek. “S’pretty. Like…a painting. Wish I cou’ paint.”

“Thanks, man.”

Holster licked his lips. “I e’er tell you how much I luh you?”

“No.”

“Huh.” Holster drifted for several moments after that, and Ransom had to pat him awake. “Wha- Where’m- Hey, Ran’poo.” He gave Ransom a dopey grin. “Wanna be ma boyfriend?”

Ransom chuckled, chalking up Holster’s flirting to his fever. “Sure thing, man.”

That ride to the hospital was the longest ten minutes of his life.

 

***

 

“He’s still in surgery, Mrs. B. S’all I know.” Ransom pinched the bridge of his nose, holding his phone tightly against his face. Maybe, just maybe if he did that she wouldn’t hear the tears in his voice. He was sugarcoating things a little. No need to worry her needlessly until he knew more. “Yeah, I know he will. I know.”

He’d laugh at Holster’s mom’s placating words if he could. Her son was the one having the emergency appendectomy, and yet she was trying to assure _him_ that Holster would be just fine.

“He’s lucky to have you, Justin,” she said over the line.

“Good thing we made each other medical proxies, right?”

“Yes, that too. You’re so good for each other. I mean’t about the other thing.”

“Yeah, he helps me through a lot of exam anxiety. Just glad I was able to get him here in time. You know before it ruptured.”

“Yes, I am thankful for that, too. But if his father and I have to be stuck in Buffalo until the morning, it’s good he has you to wait with him. He loves you so much. Said you’re the love of his life, and I’m so happy he finally told you that.”

Wait. What?

She took his confused silence for denial. “Oh. He hadn’t said… Adam is gonna kill me when he finds out I blabbed.”

“No. I just thought it was his fever talking.”

“Hardly. Just keep us updated. Our flight leaves at 7:45. Earliest we could get.”

“He’ll be glad to see you both, I’m sure.”

Ransom ended the call, still a bit floored by Mrs. Birkholtz’s admission. Holster hadn’t been joking in the ride over? Or any of the other times… He scrubbed a hand down his face and began to pace around the waiting room, which was lonely and empty. That was probably a good thing, no one there to see him falling apart. As he waited, he looked up the average duration of a routine appendectomy. Less than an hour.

So when that hour became ninety minutes, became two hours with no word, he felt his body began to shake with anxiety. In surgery, no news was definitely not good news. Finally, when he thought that he too, would throw up–from sheer nerves alone–a doctor came into the waiting room.

“He’s in recovery now. You can see him in about half an hour, but he’ll probably be groggy and not very responsive for several hours”

Ransom nodded. “Is that what took so long?”

“No, there were some complications. His appendix had ruptured prior to surgery, which required quite a bit of preventative irrigation to clean out. But barring any further complications, your friend is expected to make a full recovery.”

He let out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding and collapsed into the chair. It was then that the realization that Holster was so much more to him than just ‘friend’ finally hit him.

 

***

 

“Eyyy, Ransy. Fancy meeting you here,” Holster’s slurred voice roused Ransom from his uncomfortable sleeping position in the chair at his bedside.

“Hey, man. How you feeling?” God, his mouth felt like it was full of cotton.

He watched Holster fumble with the bed controls on his remote.

“On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. Look, Ransymuffin. I can make lightning. On. Off. On. Of-”

Ransom snatched the remote out of his hand. “Stop that, or the nurses will come in and take it away.”

Holster pouted at him. The sulking, however, was short-lived. How short? About ten seconds, before his stoned ass found something more amusing and began giggling. “Hee hee. Guess what.”

“What?”

“I’m a wizard.”

He rose an eyebrow at him. “Yeah, I don’t think you are.”

Holster squinted at him. “Why’re you so blurry.”

“I forgot to bring your glasses.” He quickly fired off a text to Bitty in hopes someone could bribe Dex to drive them over. Bitty was the best option for bribing anyone. Pie could go a long way.

“But see, look. I have white hair. Means I’m a wizard, cause all great wizards have white hair: Gandalf, Dumbledore…Vitruvius.” Holster reached up and pulled on his hair trying to flatten it out enough to see it. “At least…I think I have hair. Do I have hair, Ransy?”

“Yes, you have hair. You’re blonde.” Ransom scooted his chair closer to the bed, purely to help Holster see him better. Not for, you know, any other reason. What?

His nerve-wracking time alone in the waiting room gave him a lot of time to think. Time to think about Holster’s words, his delirious question, about what _he_ , Ransom, wanted. After laying it all out like that (in a haphazardly made table in Google Sheets) it was all painfully clear.

Holster lolled his head to the side so he could bat his eyes at him. “Hey you wanna know a word that rhymes with Ransom?”

“Shoot.”

“No, silly. Shoot doesn’t rhyme with Ransom. Shoot rhymes with…scoot.” He giggled again. “Scoot, scoot. Scoot, scoot.” Finding too much humor in his little joke, Holster chuckled for almost a minute before curiosity got the better of Ransom.

“What rhymes with Ransom, Holtzy?”

“Handsome. Imma call you Handsome Ransom… Handsome Ransom Snugglesome Hugglesome. Imma love you fore’er okay?”

This right here was prime chirping material. Pure chirping gold, and yet? Ransom didn’t dare record a word of it. It felt too private. Though, there came a moment as he sat at Holster’s bedside, that he considered recording it anyway. And that moment was when Holster began singing.

“He is smart, and he is grace. He’s got such a handsome face. He got hot booty, and nice cut waist. Yeah, he’s really super great. Oh he’s Ransom. He’s Ransom. I love him so so so so so so so so so much.”

This little song continued for eight verses. Honestly, Ransom would be impressed that Holster could come up with so many words that rhymed if he wasn’t too busy trying not to laugh at him.

“Without him I’m homesick. He’s the only one I want to pick. He’s got abs I wanna lick. Oh he’s Ransom. He’s Ransom, and I want to suck his gloriousssssssss dickkkkkkkkkkkk.”

About five seconds into the fermata on the last word, Ransom facepalmed in embarrassment on Holster’s behalf.

“Oh good Lord. How much morphine did they give him, Justin?” Mrs. Birkholtz sighed, startling Ransom from his spiral of secondhand embarrassment.

No longer interested in his ridiculous bastardization of “Miss United States”, Holster held out his arms and made grabby hands- impressive given he’d had surgery less than four hours before. “Mama! Mommy I love you so much, you are the best mom in the whole worrrrrrrld. Didja know that she’s the best mom, Captain Von Best Booty?” Holster patted him on the top of the hand before deciding that he’d rather hold it instead, which incidentally, prevented Ransom from moving out of the way so Mrs. Birkholtz could actually get to her son.

“Captain Von Best Booty?” Without looking, Ransom knew there was a look of confusion on Mr. Birkholtz’s face, one that matched the one his son sported on occasion.

“Yes, Da- Dad- daddi….o…Dada. This is Captain Von Best Booty because his booty is loads nicer than Mr. Zimmergrumpy face’s butt.” Once more, Holster giggled. “The Zimmerbutt.”

Ransom gave Holster’s hand a squeeze. “You’re a real comedian, Holtzy.”

“No. I’m a wizard.”

“What?”

Mrs. Birkholtz was too busy laughing hysterically at her son’s antics to pay attention to her husband’s confusion.

“I’m a wizard, Daddio. You can call me Adamah of Friporq Loch.”

“Holster, did you just make that up?”

“No. Silly,” he said, rubbing Ransom’s cheek. “Cuddlebug, that’s ma dunkin and donuts name.”

“Okay. Whatever you say.”

“Hey, Mommy. Have you met my boyfriend, Ransom? Isn’t he the most prettiest, beautiful elf in all the land?”

“I’m an elf now?”

Holster grinned. “Yes. Captain Von Best Booty, leader of the Tronoan Clan.”

“Yes, Sweetie. We’ve met. So he’s your boyfriend now?”

“Yeah, guess so,” Ransom said, a shy smile playing on his lips.

“Uh huh. And when I’m all grown up, I am gonna marry him. And then I will be Mr. Captain Von Best Booty.”

Again…wait what?”

“That’s nice, Adam. How about you get some rest. You’ve had a long day.”

“I know. They cut me open and took out my aliendex.”

“Appendix.”

“Yeah that’s what I- Oh my gosh, Ransy. Aliendex. That’s like our Dex.. You think he’s an alien too?”

“No.”

Ransom wasn’t sure what compelled him to do what he did next, but he stood and kissed Holster’s forehead. “Get some sleep, babe. I’ll be back later.” He only made it as far as the door before Holster started singing again.

“When the world’s rushing by like a puck in the eye, that’s amore. When your legs start to veer like you’ve had too much beer, that’s amore. Ducks will squawk quack-a-quack-a-quack, quack-a-quack-a-quack where’s my backpack? When you walk in a dream but you know you’re not dreaming, signore, Excuse moi, don’t you know back in old Toronto that’s Amore!”

Even the nurses in the hall were laughing this time.

 

***

 

Thankful to find Holster much more lucid when he returned that afternoon, Ransom resumed his seat at his bedside. “The team is gonna come by a little later. I told them they couldn’t stay long cause you needed to rest.”

Holster reached out and rubbed his head. “Such a thoughtful, bro.”

“Bro?” Ransom asked with a raised eyebrow. “I thought we were boyfriends now and that when you’re all grown you were going to marry me and become Mr. Captain Von Best Booty.”

Holster swallowed hard and looked down at his hands. “I was… um… giving you an out if you were just humoring my stoned ass.”

“I should certainly hope I wasn’t joking.” He reached over and covered Holster’s hands with one of his own to stop him from pulling at a snag in the blanket. “I plan on having shirts made one day. Yours will say ‘If lost, please return to Captain Von Best Booty.’ Mine, of course, will just say ‘Captain Von Best Booty’.”

Holster gave him a little chuckle. “I was being serious, Ransom. You don’t have to keep playing along if you don’t want to.”

“I want to, Holtzy.” Then, it was Ransom’s turn to lace their fingers together. “I definitely want to. Only…you are not ever allowed to get that sick again. Scared me half to death. Deal?”

“Deal. Now shut up and kiss me.”

“Now _that_ , that I can do.”

**Author's Note:**

> come visit me on [tumblr](http://secretgeniusshittyknight.tumblr.com/)


End file.
